January is always a fantastic month for reflection, New Year’s resolutions or making plans for future. Looking back at accomplishments over the last year and edging big bets on what to focus on next?

That’s why I have always looked forward to last quarter of the year, when the analyst communities publish their major predictions around leading industry trends. Along with the associated quadrant or wave for what is deemed as ‘hot or not’ in the software industry.

The World Quality Report by Hewlett Packard (now Micro Focus) and Capgemini (Sogeti) has been published every year since 2009 focusing on the trends in software testing and application quality.

The tenth edition has a big focus on Artificial Intelligence as one of the leading key trends in IT. Especially, with a focus on Smart Analytics and its ability to help Quality Assurance improve decision making (both Predictive & Description Analytics).

On Wednesday, January 16th I will join Malcolm Isaacs, Solution Marketing for Micro Focus in a webinar to explore the finding of the World Quality Report 2018-19 with a focus on the financial services sector:

How end-user satisfaction is top priority for QA and testing

Why an increase in digitalization is driving disruption in the Financial Services sector’s approach to application development and delivery

How the emergence of new technologies in Financial Services such as blockchain, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence are reshaping how QA and testing is done

Trends over the next two to three years that will combine automation, AI, and analytics to become a key differentiator for Financial Services organizations

Based on my previous exposure within the investment banking sector, along with the recent challenges around the OpenBanking API, GDPR, Blockchain and Fintech’s (Challenger Banks) have resulted in post-modern approach to testing and QA practices been adopted:

The Vivit community has been pretty quiet in the UK over recent years as our focus has shifted towards web-based content and knowledge sharing. This was partly due to travel restrictions after the financial crisis and partly because our members felt that they couldn't spare time away from their desks to attend meetings. Over recent months we've seen more people travelling to tester gatherings and events, so we decided to host a Vivit meeting immediately after the ADM Customer Forum hosted by Micro Focus in London.

This event gave us a chance to discuss topics which came to light during the day (at this time no mention of the recent SUSE sale), but was an opportunity to facilitate meetings and introductions between fellow users of Micro Focus ADM software and to allow knowledge sharing and wider interactive discussion.

The goal of the meeting was to share knowledge, learn from one another, and identify topics for discussion at future events (be they online or face to face). Both Richard Bishop and I welcomed the 15 new Vivit members who attended through registering via the Meetup community page.

Our new Vivit members raised some really interesting topics ranging from experienced practitioners utilising Micro Focus products with connected Internet of Things (IoT) based platforms to enterprise customers looking for guidance on how to best migrate from ALM to Octane:

Along with sharing some of the insights from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Alliance as part of representing the European Commission community around open source AI and Machine Learning (ML) enabled platforms that could also help provide insight-driven delivery capabilities (such as ReportPortal).
Both Richard and I spoke at the event covering the following topics:

Richard Bishop, Senior Test Engineer at Lloyds Banking Group.

Using UFT and LoadRunner within a Jenkins pipeline

Planning a migration to Performance Center 12.60

Jonathon Wright, Co-founder of Digital-Assured.com

The use of LeanFT with Docker (see below)

Using UFT with Legacy platforms such as mainframe (Terminal Services)

The above slides from the Vivit Meetup are now available to download from the event.
After the event we spoke to Raffi Margaliot around his continued commitment to the Vivit Community and how we can work even closer to align with future Micro Focus events.

]]>Wed, 11 Jul 2018 19:09:26 GMTDiscover the New ADMhttps://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=303665
https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=303665Last week, I attended the Micro Focus Open Horizon Summit in Berlin as the recently elected Vivit Board Director for Advocacy along with our Engagement Director, Stephanie Konkoy.

“Discover the new Micro Focus” is something that we have heard continuously over the last 250+ days since September 1st when they became one of the world's largest pure-play software companies, but what does that actually mean for you?

Let us start with the 300+ products (including heritage Hewlett Packard Enterprise / Mercury / Open View product families). Micro Focus is now managing with over 4,800 software engineers across 30 locations. To deal with this size and scale, they have had to align the end to end process:

Market Opportunity

Product Offerings

Enablement (Go To Market)

Implementation Capabilities

Tracking Performance

This includes a massive Digital Transformation across the new Micro Focus, including Agile Transformation (i.e. adopting SAFe 4.5) and Digital Engineering effort to enable reference architectures and next generation DevOps + delivery platforms (built with technologies such as Vertica / Kafka / Spark to provide machine learning and predictive analytics).

After speaking with Jerome Labat, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Micro Focus, at some lengths around the next generation products they have planned to go to market, I can confidently say that there is plenty to get excited about with the new Micro Focus.

The title of my last blog post was Legacy is your Legacy, and I was equally impressed that the case study showcase was helping Sage UK rediscover the old by helping to modernize the legacy system safeguarding their investment in Micro Focus. The following three focal points will help future-proof any investments across Application, Process, or Infrastructure Modernization:

After personally investing over 20 years in the heritage Hewlett Packard Enterprise / Mercury Interactive product family, I was keen to discover the new within the Application Development Management (ADM) product family, especially within the Functional and Non-Functional Testing portfolio:

Unified Functional Testing (UFT) Enterprise

Unified Functional Testing (LeanFT) Pro

Business Process Testing (BPT)

Hidden Gems - LeanFT now natively supports docker containers, which support Remote Desktop (RDP) and screen capture within the results.

Hidden Gems – StormRunner Load 3.0 supports AWS and Azure easy to import scripts from LoadRunner, JMeter or Gatling, combined with native support for Network Virtualisation Analytics along with new support for Application Performance Management platforms such as New Relic, Dynatrace, Splunk, and now App Dynamic.

Service Virtualization

Hidden Gems - Service Virtualisation community edition can now help target delays due to dependencies of micro-services or lack of systems alignment (only SAP certified solution)

Hopefully this will give you just a taster of the hidden gems of what “Discover the new Micro Focus” is all about. Personally, I discovered more around the cross portfolio capacities than I have ever seen before when Hewlett Packard was behind the wheel. The synergy between product families has earned Micro Focus a seat at the table as one of the largest software players across the following four pillars:

DevOps: enabling the rapid delivery of quality, secure applications with end-to-end visibility across a tool chain of commercial and open source offerings - leveraging the largest portfolio in the industry.

Hybrid IT: simplifying the management of a complex mix of platforms, delivery methods and consumption models to help organizations address business needs, control costs, and ensure availability and performance at global scale.

Predictive Analytics: Helping customers translate siloed data into real-time proactive analytics at scale, anchored on supporting open and cloud-based stacks to create new insights across applications, operations, security and the business.

Last month, I attended the Micro Focus ADM Summit in Dallas as the Vivit representative at the Communities booth along with Micro Focus blog editor/community manager, Kim Lock. Vivit was featured as one of three customer community offerings for Micro Focus with Blogs/Forums and TechBeacon rounding out the trio. I spent most of my time at the Communities booth meeting and talking to fellow and new Vivit members and leaders. As a customer, I’m a big fan of the Micro Focus ADM Forums and working with Kim who manages those forums brought greater insight to me and many other Vivit members who stopped by the booth. If you haven’t checked them out lately, please do. They are a great source for timely answers to your software questions:

“Our focus is on the customer” was the message heard several times throughout the ADM Summit from Micro Focus Senior VP and General Manager, Raffi Margaliot. It was present in the CABs, highlighted in the keynotes and discussed at the Communities booth and part of the discussions I had with Micro Focus employees. All were eager to lend an ear to listen to what I as a customer was looking for with Micro Focus software. It was also great to reaffirm that Vivit is well known in many Micro Focus circles and that we are appreciated for our efforts of education, advocacy, and community. Of course there was also plenty of talk about Octane, Stormrunner, and Deployment Automation in addition to roadmaps, innovation, enterprise scalability, and accelerating application delivery. It was a jam-packed couple of days spent focusing on all things ADM (Application Delivery Management).

The pace of the ADM Summit was very different from HPE Discover conferences I’ve attended the past several years, but in a good way. On one hand, I missed the excitement and energy that came from attending a large conference but on the other hand, my targeted experience was more fruitful business wise. I was able to strike up conversations with others at breakfast and lunch on topics directly relevant to my needs. It wasn’t hard to find others using Micro Focus ALM for example.

I was also pleased to have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with Raffi. He’s an amazingly busy guy but very approachable and a fan of Vivit. He’s been around quality, testing, and application delivery software since his Mercury Interactive days so he’s a familiar face to many ADM customers. Raffi is a fan of these targeted summits, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this trend continue every six months or so. Dallas is a Micro Focus hub city, so we could also expect to see more of these in the Dallas area. We talked about how Vivit is well positioned to provide Micro Focus with customer stories on Octane and Stormrunner. Customers find a lot of value hearing how other customers use the software. He would like Vivit to aggregate customer feedback and share it quarterly with their head of customer success to help drive product direction. What do you think about Vivit conducting our own quarterly SIG CABs?

The ADM Summit was a great opportunity to learn more about the new Micro Focus, see ADM product directions, deep dive in a workshop, and talk to a lot of ADM customers. If you have an opportunity to attend an upcoming Micro Focus Summit, I would encourage you to do so.

As the Western NY Local User Group leader, last month I planned a meeting without any speakers, vendors, or heavy PowerPoint. Several of our frequent contributors and I collaborated about the question, "What problems are you facing with testing?" This question led to a brief survey which paved the way for what turned out to be a fantastic roundtable.

Our meeting started off with the typical housekeeping type of chat, but then the real fun began. The survey and a quick live poll of responses (with a low-tech show of hands) drove various conversations such as, "We don't know much about our unit test coverage — how do we gain more insight?"' or "What are the various ways you consume/obtain test data?" The conversations were unscripted and had the whole group engaged. Our LUG is heavy in the ADM and Testing space, so most of our topics shared this focus. I encourage leaders to know your members well prior to a discussion like this to best drive conversations.

I share this as hopeful inspiration to drive vendor and presentation-free discussions which will allow the entire community to share their experiences. This is a great technique to change focus as well as help drive members to share with their peers.
]]>Thu, 10 May 2018 19:16:33 GMTVivit Keeps Your Membership Data Privatehttps://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=301655
https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=301655by Mark Ford
Vivit Board Director
Community Chairperson

Hello everyone, as your Community Director, I would like to give you an update on a topic that has a renewed level of interest recently, especially for our European members: Membership Data.

Vivit has always taken great care of your identifiable member data by keeping it secure and only using it to send you email correspondence. We never share your contact information with anyone, not even Micro Focus or HP/HPE before that. We value you as a Vivit member and we treat your data with the utmost care and respect.

European legislation known as GDPR will take effect in May 2018 and further clarifies how identifiable information can be stored and utilized for citizens of the EU. We are looking into the new policy to make sure Vivit is compliant. GDPR provides good guidelines to follow and other areas of the globe may require them at some point as well. We’ll be implementing the following for our Vivit members in the EU and in most cases, globally as well. This includes:

Individuals need to provide consent for using their data (opt-in vs. opt-out)

Individuals must be able to easily update their data and have an easy way to have their identifiable data removed (right to be forgotten)

Organizations must inform members explicitly how they accept, store, and utilize member data (privacy policy)

Organizations must remind members periodically to keep their data current (we already do this annually with our Knock a Little Louder campaign)

Organizations must store member data in a secure format and report data breaches within 72 hours (we use YourMembership.com and will report as soon as they inform us)

To facilitate the opt-in consent requirement for GDPR, over the next few months, we’ll email all members who have specified a residence in the EU to obtain their consent. Other items will be phased in on the Vivit website as we determine the best way to implement them.

Thank you for being a valued member of Vivit! If you have any questions, please let me know.

With a continued focus on speed, quality and results; our community members have a lot to share, and we are providing you with the platform and opportunity.

On the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 12noon ET, 3-5 speakers will share their knowledge, experience and learnings in 8-12 minutes each. Our objective is to be an advocate, providing 60 people with the opportunity to spread education throughout our community.

We believe there are several topics/themes that will come out throughout the year, which will result in further interest on behalf of members, enabling us to do even more with these sessions. To get you started in thinking, below are a few topics we are kickstarting, so you can contribute or build on them for your session.

Agile and DevOps

Blockchain and Digital Currency

Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Mobility, Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT)

Digital Security and Performance Engineering

How will you contribute your expertise to the community?If you are interested in participating as a SIG Talk speaker for one of our 2018 Quality and Testing topics or would like to offer another topic you could speak about, suggest a speaker or sponsor a SIG Talk please take a moment to answer our survey.

At our recent Board of Directors meeting in Chicago this past June, I was honored to be voted in as your Education Chair. Since then I have been working with my fellow board members on new ways to deliver valuable content to our Vivit community of over 41K members.

Recently, I have been involved in the closed beta and now the public beta for Storm Runner Functional. During this time, I had a chance to explore all the new features and work together with various Micro Focus R&D team members to better my understanding of the capabilities. All these team interactions gave me a great idea and a plan for a series of learning related content!

Goal 1: Leverage relationships with Micro Focus R&D Teams

I plan to work with various R&D and Technical roles within Micro Focus to talk about trending activities, new product solutions, and upgrades. From our recent Membership Survey, we know that many of you are interested in the functionality of “new products”. This collaboration with myself and Micro Focus will provide an avenue to not only see new features but have beta testers brought in for discussion and allow open questions from Vivit members to the R&D team. My hope is that leveraging this sort of relationship can help all of us as members to better plan adoption of new technologies from Micro Focus.

Goal 2: Shorter, more concise Education Video Library

Have you ever found yourself needing to watch a long webinar recording only to look for that 2-4 minutes’ worth of content that you required? I have. Have you ever had to read a lengthy advertisement filled blog for a solution to your problem? Me too! We are aiming to build a library of short and concise videos illustrating solutions and techniques to make your interaction with Micro Focus software solutions better! My plan is to send out a quick survey to narrow our search in on what areas we should start with or areas that you may aid us with.

Education is important to Vivit at all levels. I have been collaborating with Board Directors, Mark Ford (Community Chair) and Tammy Young (Advocacy Chair) to find new and creative ways to help build agendas and topics for discussion for our LUGs and SIGs. As our newly appointed roles align with our three pillars of Education, Community and Advocacy, we’ll be working as one team to deliver amazing content to our members. We plan to deliver great topics to spark conversations at our LUG events shifting the focus of conversation back to the members; such as we want to drive topics out of our global webinar events for deep dive sessions with LUG and SIG members. We are excited to get started so stay tuned for more details!

Hello everyone, I'm Mark Ford your Vivit Community Director. If you've been around Vivit for a while you might be unfamiliar with this position. If so, you're not alone, because we just recently created it. More to the point, we combined two former board positions, Membership and LUGs/SIGs, into this single director position. That means the Community Director is now a single point of contact directly involved in many areas that impact you as a Vivit member: LUG events, SIG webinars, membership surveys, profile updates, our webinar platform, the Vivit website, and even a Vivit mobile app in the works. Which is terrific because along with the new Advocacy Director position and our existing Education Director position, Vivit can now really focus in on these three core pillars.

Focusing on these areas will be even more important as we transition from HPE to Micro Focus. By the time you read this, most of HPE software will have merged with Micro Focus and Vivit will be now be serving our members as Micro Focus software users. Vivit has been working hard behind the scenes for many months to be in the best possible position so that we're even more relevant after the spin merge. As a result, you will likely start to see some changes such as updated Special Interest Groups and new membership offerings. I've also identified 22 Community related initiatives to work on over the next 10 months. This is a busy time for Vivit and rest assured we are hard at work!

I'd also like to take this time to thank the many members who filled out our recent membership survey. The response was terrific (636 responses) and the information was very valuable. We had three lucky winners who each selected an Apple watch prize. I'm also very pleased to report that over 82% of respondents agree or strongly agree that Vivit provides them with relevant information on HPE software. This statistic will help us really demonstrate our relevance to Micro Focus. But the biggest takeaway that I received from the responses is that our members want more direct, hands on, networking opportunities in areas such as: Deep Dives, troubleshooting guides, regional conferences, more local events and technical sessions, success stories, hands-on training, live demos, networking opportunities, tips and tricks, contact lists of people interested in info sharing on various topics, more LUGs and SIGs (and more active LUGs and SIGs), and ways to influence product development.

So stay tuned! You'll see more information in the coming months on these topics.

]]>Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:36:59 GMTIt’s an Exciting Time to be with Vivit – Let’s Take A Cruise! https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=250780
https://www.vivit-worldwide.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=1289493&post=250780

By Mark FordMembership ChairVivit Board of Directors

Hi everyone, I’m Mark Ford, current Membership Director at Vivit Worldwide. As Membership Director I get to be involved in many of the activities at Vivit and we have several upcoming items that I am very excited about! I’d like to take you on a little tour of what you can expect to see in the coming year. You could even consider me your cruise director for the next few moments. My clipboard is in hand so grab a cool drink and let’s see what’s in store as we take a cruise with Vivit!

Port 1: New Logo - This is always an exciting topic and it’s a great opportunity for Vivit to re-express itself. Our current logo/colors have been around for several years and while they are very recognizable, we feel it’s time for a new look and feel. We haven’t landed on a final logo yet but we’ve gone through a few iterations and edits and it’s going to be expressive, bold, informative, and stylish.

Port 2: Website Rebrand - You may have noticed our website layout is a bit dated as well. We’ve contracted with our website host to come up with a sleek website design that is modern, responsive, and mobile friendly. The colors will match our new logo color scheme so we can put the pinkish-purple and orange colors to rest. We know it can be challenging at times to find information on our site so we’ll make sure it targets what our Vivit members need the most. And you’ll be able to access it on a smartphone browser without needing a microscope!

Port 3: Newsletter Format Update - We’re proud of the content and information that we bring you each month with the Vivit InForum Newsletter. We’ll still provide great articles and Vivit updates but in a format that is easier to skim through and grab just what you need. It will be bold, attractive, and eye catching - maybe even suitable for framing!

Port 4: New Webinar Platform - We’re currently researching new webinar platforms to provide a richer experience for our sponsored and SIG webinars. We’re looking for a platform that provides more options to keep the audience engaged and works well with our website registration system so Vivit members won’t have to fill out all those fields every time they register for a webinar. We’re also focusing in on platforms that don’t require proprietary installs that might be blocked at your workplace. You’ll be able to sign up easier and attend more webinars than ever before - and we’ll have many more great ones to look forward to!

Back Home Again - Which brings us back to our original port of call. It was shorter than a 3 hour tour but hopefully you found something enjoyable to look forward to. We’re working hard to implement these changes by the end of this year so you won’t have to wait too long. If it seems like a lot of changes and you’re concerned we’re changing Vivit too much - not to worry! We’ll still be Vivit and we’ll still be your Independent HPE Software User Community. Our commitment to you as a Vivit member and HPE software customer will not waver or change in the least. But we do hope you find us easier to use, more helpful than before, and beneficial to you in every way that we can be.

P.S. If you haven’t taken the Vivit Member survey yet, now would be a great time to do so. It’s very short (only 10 multiple choice questions) and you could win a pair of Bose wireless headphones – which will come in very handy on your next cruise! We value your feedback!

I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you what I
call the Vivit Value Chain. Vivit
membership benefits create that Value
Chain and include Advocacy, Education, and Career Development and provide
access to discounts to Discover conferences and software education – but
our "value chain” doesn’t stop there. Our members make up the Vivit community,
and it is that group of individuals who come together to comprise the
many Vivit Chapters and the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that complete the Value Chain.

While simply being a member of Vivit provides great
opportunities and knowledge sharing, joining a local Chapter or SIG group is
where you realize the Vivit difference. Our Chapter and SIG group leaders are
adept at bringing relevant conversations, topics and best practice with real
life applications to these meetings. It is when our Vivit members, who are
the best and brightest users of HPE Software, and our Chapter and SIG leaders
come together to attend meetings that the full Vivit Value Chain is realized.

Vivit membership is comprised of the keen professionals in
the business, and when that talent comes together in a Vivit Chapter meeting or
SIG group webinar, problems are solved, ideas are born, and the HPE software
used in your jobs and businesses as well as that critical software investment
is fully utilized.

Take a moment and look for the Chapter or SIG group
for your HPE software interests in your community and join one! While you are on
the web site, check out some past webinars you
may have missed or revisit your favorite. Invite your colleagues to join Vivit.

If there isn’t currently a Chapter or SIG in your community
or one convenient to travel to, consider starting one. We will be glad to
show you how. Questions?

I have the privilege and honor to serve on the Vivit Board of Directors.I was elected to the Board back in 2013 after serving as a local Chapter leader since 2006.It has been an eye opening and awesome experience so far for a variety of reasons.One of the biggest things that I have learned is how important the accuracy of our profile data is.So much is dependent on having our member profiles be complete, thorough, and current.Having current data in our member profiles allows us to reach you with important Vivit news and information in a timely manner.Keeping your profile data current also allows us to better understand what countries are represented by our membership, as well as which HPE solutions our members are using and what versions.This allows us to better understand our membership and give you more of the content that matters to you.

Updating your Vivit profile is easy, important and is worth the time!You start by logging into the Vivit web site, and then clicking the ‘Manage Profile’ link in the Manage Profile menu on the right side of the Vivit home page.

Once you are on the Manage Profile page, click the ‘Edit Bio’ link.For security purposes, you will be prompted to confirm your password.

Once you reach the ‘Edit My Member Profile’ page, carefully go through each field and make sure that the data entered or selected is accurate, especially as it pertains to the ‘Account Information’ and ‘Professional Information’ sections.If there is any data that needs to be updated, please make those corrections.

After making all of your desired changes, scroll to the bottom of the Edit My Member Profile page, and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.You will be prompted on screen that your changes have been saved.

You will then be returned to your profile page and you should see your updated profile data reflected.

It only takes a few minutes to update your profile, so please make that investment so that we can better serve you and make our user group community the best that it can be.

I am very excited about Discover 2015 London. First time for me to be in England! There is so much history to see and lots to do when the conference is over.

When it comes to Discover, I am always amazed at the content delivered over three days. I know we will all have a great opportunity to network together, learn about what’s new from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and see how other companies, like yours, are improving everyday with HPE solutions.

Vivit is proud to announce we will have four breakout sessions listed in the catalog this year. These breakout session topics focus on Big Data, Application Development Management Strategy, Security and Automation/Cloud Management and will surely provide great knowledge to all who attend.

Hello everyone. I’m Mark Ford, Board Director - Membership Chairperson at Vivit Worldwide. Nine years ago, I joined the Mercury User’s Group when I became a Mercury Quality Center administrator. Shortly thereafter, HP acquired Mercury and our user group joined Vivit. I’ve served as a Vivit Chapter Leader in two different chapters over the past five years, both in Iowa (briefly) and now in the Carolinas. I’m still working in the Financial Services industry as an HP ALM admin, and I’m excited to now be involved with Vivit in this new position. As Membership Chairperson, my main focus is on three areas: who are our Vivit Members, what do they need from Vivit, and how can Vivit best serve those needs?

Who are our Vivit Members? I knew we were a worldwide organization, but I had no idea just how geographically diverse we are. Did you know that we have over 30,000 members spanning 138 different countries across 6 continents? We even have members from places I’ve never heard of like Curacao — a small island nation in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan coast. It’s great to be part of a group that encompasses people from so many different areas, backgrounds, and cultures — all with a common interest in HPE software. Recently I’ve been working with a reporting tool to better visualize our membership data.That’s why it’s important that you take the time to update your Vivit member profile periodically so that it is complete and up to date. We use that data to detect trends and growth patterns in various areas and to help HPE better understand the needs of their customers as well.

Vivit Member Locations by Country/State/Province

What do they need from Vivit? Our members are the sole reason we exist, and while we may have vast amounts of distance between us, our needs tend to be focused in the same areas. We’re all busy, trying to do more with less and work smarter instead of harder with the HPE software products that we use, but how can we stay on top of all the changes that occur in our industries, service areas, and with HP Software offerings? That’s where Vivit comes in! Collectively we can learn, network, share, and grow in ways that would take much longer in isolation. One way that I drill down into the specific needs of our membership is by leading the Vivit Membership Committee. We’re a small group of active Vivit members with insight into the needs of our communities and a passion for helping Vivit reach those needs. Every other month, we discuss new ways to engage users, webinar topics of value, conference booth themes, and interesting ways to provide for our members. If you have a need that you would like to bring to our attention, please send me an email. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

How can Vivit best serve those needs? All of the ideas we receive and discussions we have in the membership committee get funneled back into Vivit to help drive membership value and growth. Do you need easier ways to introduce others to Vivit? We’ll update the Vivit website with an invitation letter and maybe even put together a short video for you. Is your organization challenged with a specific need that HP Software could address? We’ll get a webinar set up. Do you have an idea to help draw attendance to the Vivit booth at HPE conferences? We’ll make sure the Vivit staff gets that idea. Anything that helps Vivit bring more value to our members is a great idea and exactly what we are looking for on the membership committee!

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please email me at mark.ford@vivit-worldwide.org. I look forward to meeting you and hearing your thoughts to help keep Vivit running strong!

Thanks!

Mark Ford

P.S. If you haven’t updated your Vivit Profile in a while, go to: https://vivitworldwide.site-ym.com/members/edit.asp and log in with your Vivit username and password. If you have forgotten your Vivit username and/or password, click on the link to reset your password and you can enter an email address that you may have used previously.

As Vivit was just getting started, Tammy Young was the director of a startup with very little budget for training, so when a Vivit representative approached her at an HP conference in Las Vegas, she was immediately interested in the group’s potential for her team.

"In the beginning, it was a way to reach out and connect with others using the same tools I was at the time,” Tammy said. "I was trying to leverage some of the expertise by going out to the website and saying ‘hey, has anyone tried to do this?’” And she was finding answers.

Now, Tammy is the Chapter and Special Interest Group Chair on the Vivit Board of Directors, and she said it’s never been a better time to take a leadership role in the organization. "There’ are more leaders in leadership roles in Vivit than ever,” she said. "It’s not just putting you in touch with people using the same software, it’s also putting you in touch with your peers.”

Tammy is Director of IT Quality Assurance at Aflac Worldwide, where she leads projects mainly using HP ALM and HP UFT, along with HP Fortify. She said her management at Aflac has supported her involvement in Vivit "absolutely 100 percent.” My management understands how being involved in Vivit to the extent I am helps me get the optimal use of our HP Software,” Tammy said. She also credits Vivit with leading to more fulfilling work, being recognized in a new role and an expert in the ALM tool Aflac has in place. She is considered a thought leader and can affect change more rapidly.”

And personally, as a board member, she gets to work with other people who are passionate about their work and who find Vivit an important part of their lives. "I can’t tell you what a talented group of people that serve on that Board,” Tammy said. "Vivit members are always happy to help each other out, and the time they take is certainly worth it." She feels she gains even more than she gives.

"In actuality, it’s a more interesting way to get information and get access to your peer group than most channels nowadays,” Tammy said.

A new Vivit Worldwide executive Board was recently announced during HP Discover and looks to continue building the organization that has helped build career expertise and personal connections with thousands of fellow HP Software users.

These long-time members have used HP Software in roles including banking, healthcare, and specialist software testing, and all continue to build their knowledge through the Vivit Worldwide knowledge base:

Vivit President, Richard Bishop leads the UK Local User Group and has previously held responsibility for nominations, European development, social media, and education. His specialties include Microsoft server operating systems, performance engineering, and the HP ALM suite.

Vivit Vice President, Mark Herbert leads the Arizona Local User Group and is a Co-Leader of the HP Software Education Special Interest Group. He has previously held the education and nominations Board positions. His specialties include HP Application Lifecycle Management, Quality Center, QuickTest Professional, Unified Functional Testing, and Business Process Testing.

Vivit Secretary, Colin Fries until recently co-led the St. Louis Local User Group. His focus is on test automation architecture and has used multiple tool sets, including HP's Unified Functional Testing (UFT).

Richard said that during the last seven years when he has been involved with Vivit, he has been able to increase his knowledge of HP Software as well as raise his professional profile within HP. His membership has allowed him to build relationships with other members on similar career paths who have helped him understand and develop best practices.

Vivit has over 30,000 members worldwide and some of the IT industry’s top thought-leaders as members and volunteers. These individuals volunteer their time to lead Local User Groups (LUG) and worldwide virtual Special Interest Groups (SIG).

Mark attested that Vivit’s SIGs have improved his understanding of HP Software’s many solutions. His leadership roles in Vivit have allowed him to act as an advocate for HP Software customers around the world. "It helps you get to know the HP executives you might not usually run across,” he said.

Chris also has maintained close interactions with HP executives and has long been drawn toward companies that have used HP products. "HP products seem like they're a lot easier to use than other proprietary software. HP products almost seem intuitive and are very easy to integrate with other products and solutions,” Chris stated.

Richard, as well as Mark and Chris, all transitioned to Vivit from the Mercury User Group after HP acquired Mercury in 2006.

Colin told us he joined Vivit without much prior knowledge of HP Software and needed to learn as much as possible to help build his career. He eventually became the St. Louis LUG leader and sought a position on Vivit’s executive Board to get an even deeper experience. "Without Vivit, it would have been difficult to learn some of these tools and their processes on my own. The network of peers that I have assembled has been invaluable in that it allowed me to easily resolve questions and validate ideas,” Colin said.